Arizona’s officeholders had mixed reactions this week to Republican Gov. Doug Ducey’s decision to send up to 250 National Guardsmen to the Arizona-Mexico border to deal with a rise in migration.
The two U.S. senators and some sheriffs liked it, but other officeholders didn’t, including a coalition of border counties, revealing a split among Democrats.
Ducey made the emergency declaration Tuesday and said he would put $25 million in state funds toward the effort. The troops will assist with medical care at detention centers, install and maintain border cameras, monitor and collect data from public safety cameras, and analyze satellite imagery for smuggling trends, Ducey said. They will not be armed.
The sheriffs from Cochise, Yuma and Maricopa counties expressed their support for Ducey’s declaration, as did Republican members of the state Legislature. But the sheriffs of Santa Cruz County and Pima County did not support the deployment, calling it unneeded.
In the days after the declaration, U.S. Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, a Democrat whose district includes most of the Arizona-Mexico border, condemned Ducey’s decision, as did Tucson’s Democratic mayor, Regina Romero.
However, Arizona’s two senators, both Democrats, supported Ducey.
Sen. Mark Kelly: “There is a crisis on the border and I have pushed the administration for the additional resources, staffing, transportation, and the testing necessary to provide a secure, orderly process that does not fall on Arizona communities.”
“There are important missions that the Arizona National Guard can perform at the border and the governor calling them up will provide assistance to both local law enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security.”
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema: “I welcome the governor’s action to provide logistical support to Arizona communities, and look forward to hearing more details about how the National Guard will assist. I will continue working closely with Arizona leaders and organizations to support our border communities, secure the border, prevent the spread of COVID-19, and treat all migrants and unaccompanied children fairly and humanely.”
Both Kelly and Sinema called on the Biden administration to reimburse Arizona for the costs of deploying the National Guard.
The Arizona Border Counties Coalition, made up of county supervisors from the four border counties, wrote to Ducey on Wednesday and said they were disappointed he chose to send the National Guard instead of helping with on-the-ground costs incurred by counties.
“We are disappointed that you failed to consult with the various Boards of Supervisors of each border county on this matter,” the coalition said. “If asked, we would have requested assistance for transportation services, specifically buses and drivers, to provide those transportation services that we are now left to arrange on our own.”
Mayor Romero: “It’s disappointing that Gov. Ducey is playing politics with the National Guard, wasting Arizona taxpayer dollars in the process.”
“If Gov. Ducey was truly committed to helping, he would be supporting the efforts of local governments and NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) to provide humanitarian care, which is what we’re focused on through our efforts to house asylum seekers at local hotels. Unfortunately, the governor is more concerned with raising his national political profile than actually working to solve this issue.”
Rep. Grijalva: “It’s a disgrace that Gov. Ducey continues to militarize our borderlands. We must stop meeting asylum-seeking children and families with guns and troops and instead, direct all resources needed at the border to localities and nongovernmental organizations to adequately assist asylum seekers.”
— Curt Prendergast and Tim Steller
Sinema fashionably flips bird
Arizona’s flamboyant U.S. senator, Kyrsten Sinema, went in a vulgar direction in her fashion stylings on Sunday.
Sinema — once labeled a “Prada socialist” but now more of a couture centrist — posted a picture of herself on Instagram wearing a pink hat and pink glasses while sucking a ruby red drink through a purple straw. No issues there.
But on her finger was a brightly colored ring, probably plastic, shaped into words that were hard to make out at first glance. If you zoomed in, though, you could see that the ring said “(expletive) off”. Yes, it used the full F word.
A reporter for Politico named Melanie Zanona noticed the photo on Sinema’s Instagram “story” feature and posted it herself on Twitter Sunday. That set off another round of upset online responses against Sinema, who had already angered many liberals by the way she voted against a minimum-wage increase in the American Rescue Plan.
As Politico put it in its Monday Playbook feature: “How very Sinema.”
— Tim Steller
Portela: Take traffic from TPD
Politicians rushed Tuesday to respond to the guilty verdict in the criminal trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. By and large, they applauded the verdict, decried the death of George Floyd and hoped for a better future.
Andres Portela, one of two African American candidates running for City Council in Tucson this year also put out a statement, and it ended up with a dramatic policy proposal.
Portela, who is running for the Democratic nomination in Ward 6, proposed removing traffic safety from the responsibilities of the Tucson Police Department. Instead, the Transportation and Mobility Department would take over traffic safety, he said.
In an interview, Portela explained he hasn’t fleshed out the idea completely but that it would help a police department that has fewer and fewer officers by removing one of their jobs. It would mean, he said, “people without badges or guns taking over traffic safety.”
It could be done, he suggested, through a combination of traffic engineering, automation and people working on the street. It isn’t a finished concept but something he would like to work out with the relevant departments and city leaders, he said.
Incumbent Steve Kozachik and challenger Miranda Schubert are also running for the nomination in Ward 6.
— Tim Steller
Washington D.C. might be awash with politicians quick to cast blame on one side or the other, but experts say we are forgetting the real victims of the crisis who are the unaccompanied children at the U.S. and Mexican border. Interviews with legal experts and activists about the situation and the impact it is having on the children in detention centers waiting to be united with their families.
